Contemporary Review articles from March 2003

Contemporary Review archives from March 2003

Ethnicity and conflict in India and Pakistan.
March 1, 2003... THE September 11 events and their fallout added to the importance of South Asia. The conflict in Kashmir, sectarian and political violence in Pakistan, riots in Gujarat, and insurgency in Northeast India -- all these issues are relevant as well...

A new republican generation?
March 1, 2003... A WEEK after the 2002 US mid-term elections Karl Rove, the Special Assistant to President Bush, gave a speech at the University of Utah that praised George Bush for leading the Republican party to an unusual victory. Against the tide of history...

Is NATO in trouble?
March 1, 2003... THE West's victories in the Cold War and NATO's collective victory over Serbia and further enlargement of the Alliance seemed to make NATO even more viable than before. Yet this is not the case as was shown in last month's battle between the...

Islam and the west: part I.
March 1, 2003... EVEN before the attack on the World Trade Center it was noticeable that there has been an increase in the availability of new publications in the West on the subject of Islam. They range from relatively sophisticated analyses to straightforward...

All right an assessment of Tom Stoppard's plays.(Critical Essay)
March 1, 2003... IN THE beginning was despair. True, few literary debuts have been as triumphant as Tom Stoppard's -- from anonymity to precocious star of the National Theatre with his first full-length stage play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967)....

American Communism in 1937: A British view.
March 1, 2003... BESIDES various memoranda on the Communist Party of Great Britain (e.g. CAB 98/18, Co 295/606/4, HO 45/25552 and HO 45/25573-4) the Public Record Office at Kew, Britain's government archive, possesses a number of reports on Communist parties...

PSALM: A Holocaust Poem by Eva Lang.(Poem)(Critical Essay)
March 1, 2003... Translated from the Hungarian by Thomas Land EVA Lang a Hungarian Holocaust survivor aged 77 years, has unleashed a fury of verse of stunning beauty and intensity. Her relentless output is reminiscent of the chanting of the ancient...

Zimbabwe's Big Man. (Reviews).(Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Robert Mugabe: A Life of Power and Violence. Stephen Chan. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]14.95. 240 pages. ISBN 1-86064-873-8. This is the third life of Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, that this reviewer has read during the past...

Who Reads What and Why. (Reviews).(Bestsellers: Popular Fiction Since 1900)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Bestsellers: Popular Fiction Since 1900. Clive Bloom. Palgrave. [pounds sterling]10.99. 292 pages. ISBN 0-333-68743-4. This book has been needed for several years now: a summary of most of the successful popular fiction writers and their...

Lord Birt's Ironclad Self-Esteem and The BBC. (Reviews).(The Harder Path: The Autobiography)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... The Harder Path: The Autobiography. John Birt. [pounds sterling]20.00. 532 pages. ISBN 0-316-86019-0. In the Council Chamber of Broadcasting House, a dignified panelled room looking down Upper Regent Street, are portraits of selected former...

The Father of Dialysis. (Reviews).(The Nuts and Bolts of Life: Willem Kolff and the Invention of the Kidney Machine)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... The Nuts and Bolts of Life: Willem Kolff and the Invention of the Kidney Machine. Paul Heiney. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]14.99. 232 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2894-8. Anyone who has had a friend or loved one suffer from 'end stage renal...

The Poetry of Bertolt Brecht. (Reviews).(Empedocles' Shoe: Essays on Brecht's Poetry)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Empedocles' Shoe: Essays on Brecht's Poetry. Tom Kuhn and Karen Leeder, editors. Methuen. [pounds]20.00. 307 pages. ISBN 0413-75730-7. The title of this volume sets the tone by its reference to a long poem that retells a classical story....

An Accessible History of Modern Ireland. (Reviews).(From Union to Union. Nationalism, Democracy and Religion in Ireland: Act of Union to EU)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... From Union to Union. Nationalism, Democracy and Religion in Ireland: Act of Union to EU. Brian Girvin. Gill and Macmillan. [pounds]29.99. 278 pages. ISBN 0-7171-3336-2. This is not yet another book on the Act of Union, or acts of union,...

Shakespeare and Modern Academics. (Reviews).(Shakespeare after Mass Media)(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Shakespeare after Mass Media. Richard Burt, editor. Palgrave. [pounds sterling]40.00. 340 pages. ISBN 0-312-29453-0. This collection is devoted to schlock, the mass or popular leavings to which Shakespeare has been reduced. Here one may...

New and Noteworthy. (Reviews).(Bibliography)
March 1, 2003... On 30 January HAUS PUBLISHING, a new publishing venture, was launched in London, The brain-child of Dr Barbara Schwepcke, the new publisher is inspired in part by Rowohlts' successful monograph series in her native Germany. This has been...

The World of Paperbacks.(Bibliography)
March 1, 2003... CONSTABLE ROBINSON has recently published a variety of titles relating to biography and history including Robert Harvey's highly praised Liberators: South America's Savage Wars of Freedom 1810-30 ([pounds sterling]8.99), Frank Giles' Napoleon...

The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century. John Brockman, editor. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]12.99. 301 pages. ISBN 0-297-82925-4. To the editor of this collection of twenty-five essays (first...

The Archaeology of Nostalgia: How the Greeks re-created their mythical past. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... The Archaeology of Nostalgia: How the Greeks re-created their mythical past. Sir John Boardman. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]32.00. 240 pages. ISBN 0-500-05115-1. For centuries after the Renaissance educated people were familiar with the...

Degas and the Dance. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Degas and the Dance. Jill de Vonyar and Richard Kendall. Harry N. Abrams. [pounds sterling]34.00 (US$49.95). 303 pages. ISBN 0-8109-3282-2. This beautifully illustrated study, with 325 illustrations of which 200 are in colour, was originally...

Britain in Revolution 1625-1660. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Britain in Revolution 1625-1660. Austin Woolrych. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]25.00. 814 pages. ISBN 0-19-820081-1. Prof. Woolrych takes a long view of the troubles that racked Britain between the 1640s and the Restoration of...

Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower. David Baldwin. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00. 238 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2774-7. Elizabeth Woodville, consort to Edward IV, mother of the two Princes who died in the Tower,...

England's Elizabeth: An After life in Fame and Fantasy. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... England's Elizabeth: An After life in Fame and Fantasy. Michael Dobson and Nicola J. Watson. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]19.99. 348 pages. ISBN 0-19-818377-1. One of the principal tasks facing important people is creating the...

Pevsner on Art and Architecture: The Radio Talks. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Pevsner on Art and Architecture: The Radio Talks. Stephen Games, editor. Methuen. [pounds sterling]20.00. 357 pages. ISBN 0-413-77243-8. Towards the end of his life Sir Nikolaus Pevsner was revered as something approaching a demigod when it...

The Battle for Normandy 1944. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... The Battle for Normandy 1944. Robin Neillands. Cassell. [pounds sterling]20.00. 456 pages. ISBN 0-304-35837-1. Mr Neillands is a widely published writer on warfare and in this book he consulted not only the established archive sources but the...

The Oxford English Literary History. Volume 2. 1350-1547: Reform and Cultural Revolution. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... The Oxford English Literary History. Volume 2. 1350-1547: Reform and Cultural Revolution. James Simpson. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]30.00. 661 pages. ISBN 0-19-818261-9. The theme of this survey history is 'very simple, central...

Larry Burrows: Vietnam. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Larry Burrows: Vietnam. Russell Burrows. Jonathan Cape. [pounds sterling]35.00. 244 pages. ISBN 0-224-06208-5. Larry Burrows was the English photographer whose pictures of the Vietnam War, published in Life magazine, made him famous. Burrows...

By the Sword: Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai Warriors, Swashbucklers, and Olympians. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... By the Sword: Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai Warriors, Swashbucklers, and Olympians. Richard Cohen. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]20.00. 519 pages. ISBN 0-333-901924. Mr Cohen, who has the dubious literary claim to have edited Jeffrey Archer's...

Anti-Semitism: A History. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... Anti-Semitism: A History. Dan Cohn-Sherbok. Sutton Publishing. [pounds sterling]20.00 (US$29.95). 357 pages. ISBN 0-75092492-6. The author of this survey history, himself an American-born rabbi, is described by the publisher as 'a major figure...

The Real Middle-Earth: Magic and Mystery in the Dark Ages. (Reviews).(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... The Real Middle-Earth: Magic and Mystery in the Dark Ages. Brian Bates. Sidgwick & Jackson. [pounds sterling]18.99. 292 pages. ISBN 0-283-07353-5. The release of the first two film versions of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is the...